In the dead winter of January 1989 I found myself in the Soviet Union--an
atheistic, communist Superpower at the time--studying and photographing for the first time in history color pages from the
oldest most complete manuscript of the Hebrew Old Testament in the world (see above photograph). It was a historical event
that made international news. The manuscript was the early 11th-century CE Codex Leningrad B19a. How I came to be there, and
how the communists got the medieval document in the first place are stories that'll have to be told another time. The international
breaking news right now is the ‘rediscovery' of another Hebrew Old Testament manuscript called the En-Gedi Scroll (see
photograph below). It's arguably associated with the Dead Sea Scrolls, and computer imaging technology has unlocked its contents
for the first time ever.

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Those contents pose an intriguing question for religious scholars and other academicians:
When it comes to the fidelity and integrity of textual transmission, does the revelation of En-Gedi Scroll contents render
the Bible the most reliable, hence, holiest of holy books?

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New Technology Unravels an Old Scroll:
Scientists at the University of Kentucky have used creative computer imaging technology to virtually unfurl the charred fragile
first-century CE En-Gedi Scroll. For the first time since its discovery in 1970 the mystery of its contents (the first two
chapters of Leviticus) has been unraveled. In contrast to the high technology employed to hack into the En-Gedi Scroll, low
technology was used to read the contents of yet another Dead Sea Scroll identified as the Copper Scroll.

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The
Copper Scroll and Low Technology: Discovered in 1952, the non-Biblical Copper Scroll of the Dead Sea Scrolls is,
as its name suggests, made of copper--highly oxidized copper--that was rolled up and had broken into two pieces. The obvious
challenge was to unroll them without damaging the metal, hence, rendering the text unreadable. "After considerable preparatory
research," says religious scholar and metallurgist Robert Feather, "John Allegro of Oxford University, a member
of the original international translation team working on the Dead Sea Scrolls in Jerusalem, persuaded the École Biblique
team to let him take one of the copper pieces to England. There the first piece of scroll was finally ‘opened' by Professor
H. Wright Baker at Manchester College of Science and Technology (now UMIST) in 1955, followed by the second piece in 1956."

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How did Baker ‘open' the scroll?

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"The technique Wright Baker used,"
continues Feather, "was to coat the outside of the scroll with Araldite adhesive and then slice the scroll, using a 4,000th/inch
thick saw, into 23 separate sections." The result, as stated, was a number of semi-hemispheric plates that allowed for
easy reading.

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Unlike the Copper Scroll, the En-Gedi Scroll is a Biblical document, as mentioned above. Now,
the big question is: Would En-Gedi Scroll contents match famed Hebrew Old Testament scrolls such as the Codex Leningrad B19a
(the document that Protestant Bibles are based on) and Dead Sea Scrolls?

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The question
is an important one since scholars maintain that all holy books are not created equal when it comes to historical alignment,
or manuscript content. For example:

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The Vedas/Upanishads: The oldest writings of
the Hindu religion are the Vedas. These are a collection of prayers and hymns that were completed about 1,000 BCE. The Vedanta
(or, Upanishads) sprang from the Vedas. The Upanishads are sacred Hindu treatises containing the teachings of samsara
(the transmigration of the soul) and Karma (the belief that what goes around comes around; or, stated Biblically,
‘you reap what you sow') dated from 800-400 BC.

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Do historical versions of the Upanishads align?

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"Historians and Indologists have put the date of composition of the Upanishads from around 800-400 BC,"
says Hindu expert Subhamoy Das, "though many of the verse versions may have been written much later. In
fact, they were written over a very long period of time and do not represent a coherent body of information or one particular
system of belief [emphasis supplied]," says the university textbook Experiencing the World's Religions: Tradition,
Challenge, and Change (2009). No, the Upanishads don't align.

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Who Wrote the Upanishads/Vedas?:
Archaeologists are at a loss as to who wrote the Vedas and Vedanta (Upanishads). But experts have concluded that the Upanishads
"neither contain any systematic philosophical reflections nor present a unified doctrine." (Encyclopedia Britannica)

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The Daodejing: Written with terse, cryptic verses (the shortest ones being three or four words long),
the Daodejing ("The Classic of the Way and the Power") is the primary text of Daoism, a philosophical religion of
Chinese origin.

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According to archaeologists, when early manuscripts of the Daodejing are compared with today's
version, continuity suffers. "The book has been linguistically dated to about 350 B.C.E.," says Experiencing
the World's Religions. "But it seems to have circulated in several earlier forms."

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How
so? Do these forms agree?

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"In 1972," the textbook continues, "at the tombs of Mawangdui, archeologists
discovered two ancient copies of the text that differ from the arrangement commonly used." (Emphasis supplied.)
The two texts are misaligned. Are these the only misaligned versions according to archaeologists? "Another shorter
ancient version was found in a tomb at Guodian in 1993," the manual reports. "It contains about one-third of
the standard text." So, actually, all three versions are misaligned.

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Furthermore, commenting on the
content of the Daodejing the same source notes: "The book shows some repetition, has no clear order, and exhibits
a deliberate lack of clarity." (Emphasis provided.) Aside from manuscript misalignment it would appear that inconsistency
in content is also problematic.

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Who Wrote the Daodejing?: With regard to the author(s),
there is a lack of scholarly consensus. However, Experiencing the World's Religions says internal evidence "suggests
that the book is not the work of a single author but is rather the assembled work of many people, gathered over time."
On the other hand, the Encyclopedia Britannica notes that Laozi, the alleged founder of Daoism, is the singular traditional
author. It relates, "The long tradition that Laozi was the author of the Daodejing was so badly shaken in the 19th century
that some scholars even questioned the historical existence of the sage." In other words, there may not have ever been
a Laozi.

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Our textbook concurs. "Whether Laozi ever existed is unknown."

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Now,
what about the Bible?

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Does the En-Gedi Scroll Match Other Hebrew Scrolls? The New York
Times (as well as other news sources) explains that the scroll's contents are "identical" to the Codex Leningrad
B19a, which is "the authoritative version of the Hebrew Bible and the one often used as the basis for translations of
the Old Testament in Protestant Bibles." Amazingly, although perhaps nearly a thousand years separate the En-Gedi Scroll
and the Codex Leningrad B19a, they are "identical" in letter-for-letter correspondence!

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Astonishingly,
while the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Codex Leningrad B19a can be said to correspond 100% content-wise, there are minor spelling
differences that don't affect the textual message.

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The article goes on to quote renown expert
Dr. Emanuel Tov of Hebrew University, a Dead Sea Scrolls guru, as saying, "We have never found something as striking
as this. This is the earliest evidence of the exact form of the medieval text." Yes, the En-Gedi Scroll is "identical"
to, or is in the "exact form" as the Codex Leningrad B19a!

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But what about Greek New Testament
scrolls? Are these in alignment?

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Do Greek New Testament Scrolls Match?: If the Bible is
to earn the designation of being the ‘holiest' of ancient holy books, then early manuscripts of the Greek New Testament
would have to align also. Is this the case? Indeed, they do. Consistent with the content alignment of the En-Gedi Scroll,
the Codex Leningrad B19a, and the Dead Sea Scrolls, the content configuration of the Greek New Testament portion of the Codex
Vaticanus 1209 (4th century CE, discovered in the Vatican library in Italy), Codex Sinaiticus (4th century CE, found in a
trash can in Syria), and the Rylands Papyrus (2nd century CE, uncovered in a garbage dump in Egypt) are mirror images of each
other.

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The Bible and the Qur'an: Although the Qur'an doesn't qualify as an ancient book
predicated on ancient Arabic manuscripts dating back thousands of years, it's worthy of mention, if for no other reason than
to show that sacred texts from "Eastern" religions (e.g. Hinduism and Daoism) aren't being singled out for criticism
since the Qur'an is a "Western" text considered sacred by Muslims.

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In comparing the Bible with
the Qur'an linguists give the edge to the Bible for several reasons, not the least of which is language restriction and facilitation.
For example, a true Muslim convert must learn Arabic--considered the holy language of the Qur'an--in order to read it effectively.
By way of contrast, the Bible (or sections thereof) is published in nearly 3,000 languages, which facilitates understanding
as prospective believers learn from its pages in the ‘language of their heart,' their mother tongue. (Compare Zachariah
8:23; Acts 2:1-12; Revelation 5:9, 10; 7:9; 14:6)

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Linguists, religious scholars, social anthropologists,
and business insiders also point out that as the world's most popular book, the Bible is simultaneously the number one book
printed in Arabic and other languages. "Writer James Chapman created a list of the most read books in the world based
on the number of copies each book sold over the last 50 years," says Business Insider. "He found that the
Bible far outsold any other book, with a whopping 3.9 billion copies sold over the last 50 years."

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Conclusion:
Check out the links below and determine for yourself whether or not the Bible is the ‘holiest' of ancient holy books.

In the dead winter of January 1989 I found myself in the Soviet Union--an atheistic, communist Superpower
at the time--studying and photographing for the first time in history color pages from the oldest most complete manuscript
of the Hebrew Old Testament in the world (see above photograph). It was a historical event that made international news. The
manuscript was the early 11th-century CE Codex Leningrad B19a. How I came to be there, and how the communists got the medieval
document in the first place are stories that'll have to be told another time. The international breaking news right now is
the ‘rediscovery' of another Hebrew Old Testament manuscript called the En-Gedi Scroll (see photograph below). It's
arguably associated with the Dead Sea Scrolls, and computer imaging technology has unlocked its contents for the first time
ever.

Those contents pose an intriguing question for religious scholars and other academicians: When it comes to
the fidelity and integrity of textual transmission, does the revelation of En-Gedi Scroll contents render the Bible the most
reliable, hence, holiest of holy books?